


Well Met ficlets (Klaus and Tarvek)

by Persephone_Kore



Series: Well Met [2]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Fluff, Gen, in loco parentis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 05:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1928484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persephone_Kore/pseuds/Persephone_Kore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three incidents, two only a bit over drabble length, in the progression of their relationship. </p><p>"Playing It Cool": Tarvek and Klaus discuss plans for dealing with the rest of the conspiracy. (This one actually takes place before the end of "Well Met at Mechanicsburg", but it didn't fit in as a flashback.)<br/>"Cold": Tarvek has a cold. And an ear infection. And a meeting to attend.<br/>"Frozen": About a year after the Storm King opera trip, the one they got Barry to endorse is out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Playing It Cool

* * *

"Your relatives," the Baron said conversationally, "are maddening."

Tarvek reached for the latest letter and skimmed it. "I wouldn't expect that to change any time soon. But if you don't at least pretend to respect them, they're not going to pretend to be cooperative."

The Baron snorted. "You make it sound like the mutual pretense isn't the maddening part."

"It's better than war. Usually. That's part of why the rules are _there_ , you know." Tarvek contemplated the letter. "This is Knights of Jove stuff; they're just not saying so directly. Maybe I should make you the head of the Order." 

" _What?_ " 

Tarvek looked up at him, dead serious. "Well, the position's open." His father could hardly be in charge of it now, Anevka wasn't suitable since she'd killed their mother even if nobody else did know, and Grandmother's authority was real but unofficial. 

"Weren't you just making a case for _not_ antagonizing them?" 

"No," said Tarvek. "For respecting them and the rules they play by. We play by." He gave the letter back. "I'm not going to start kicking people out, but I can certainly appoint someone to my own Knights."

* * *


	2. Cold

* * *

Even the Baron's enthusiastic immunisation program couldn't prevent colds from sweeping periodically through the school. Colds were famous for defiantly running their course in the face of Sparks' inability to invent a cure. This was not strictly true or fair: there were approximately six thousand Spark-created cures for the common cold, and even once you took the ones that were worse than the cold itself off the list, you were still rather spoilt for choice. What you very rarely got was one that reliably worked outside the first time the originating Spark administered it, but that happened a lot with inventions. 

Alleviating symptoms was much more predictable, however, and apart from a few minutes of spluttering when the herbal fumes got up his nose from the inside, Tarvek barely noticed he was ill for hours after the application of Barry's favourite honey-based remedy. Although an excited beegle tried to kiss everybody who'd taken it, and had to be restrained from spreading germs around faster by checking the other students to see if she'd missed any. 

He woke up in the middle of the night, though, feeling a little bit stuffy again and with a hot pressure deep in his left ear, with a feeling between itching and sharp pain. He tried rolling onto his right side and swallowed gingerly. This tugged on the feeling and had, Tarvek decided after several shallow breaths to clear his thoughts, probably been a mistake. 

He got up to get Andy and went back to bed sitting up, with the midmoth dozing again in his lap, and resigned himself to not getting any more sleep.

He made himself eat at breakfast, sort of. Agatha was missing -- he remembered something about plans to get up early and go help look after the Jägers who'd caught this. Gil seemed to spend half the meal sneezing and then went off to ask Otilia for another dose of honey. 

Before Gil got back, Anevka slid in beside Tarvek. "You've barely spoken this morning," she said without looking at him. "Do you need me to make excuses for you? Madame Otilia seems like she might let you out of class."

"She would," Tarvek said, "but I don't want to miss it. My ear hurts, that's all."

Anevka sniffed lightly, either because she needed to or in lieu of obviously grimacing. "I don't have anything good to give you. I wonder if there are decent supplies anywhere we could get to?" 

"I'll be fine," Tarvek said. "Don't start sneaking around the Castle, I got them a little too annoyed about that a while ago. Sorry."

Anevka looked puzzled; he'd never told her he almost got expelled and he guessed it hadn't seemed like important enough gossip for anybody else to tell her that he and Gil and Agatha had been caught sneaking around the airship and told to stop. But he didn't really feel like explaining, especially when talking hurt only a little less than swallowing. 

Gil brought over more honey for him, and swallowing that didn't hurt _as_ much, but this time the sharp smell made him sneeze and pain shot through his ear as if he'd burnt himself. It eased up for a while, and Tarvek managed to distract himself by concentrating on lessons and lab work without having to carry on conversations, since half the school was symptomatic at that point. The smaller children tended to make themselves feel worse by crying, which kept everybody old enough to help look after them busy. 

It was hurting worse again, stabbing in time with his heartbeat, when he slipped out for his meeting with the Baron. Which he didn't think was going that badly until the Baron stopped after a few minutes and gave him a long look. "Either I've done something alarming again or that cold is taking it out of you," the Baron said drily. "Does your throat hurt?" 

Tarvek shook his head, confused, and then realised he'd gone back to not talking and that had bothered the Baron before. He wasn't thinking well if he'd forgotten that. "Ear," he said. He had to swallow and tried not to wince. "I can talk." He'd just really rather not. 

The Baron stood, frowning, and leaned over the desk to feel Tarvek's forehead. "You should tell Otilia when you feel feverish," he said. 

"I'd have said something if I had to do balance tests," said Tarvek. 

"That... is also a good idea, but not exactly my point." The Baron came around the desk and offered him a hand. "Come on. This isn't urgent." 

Tarvek took it, confused, and was still expecting to be drawn to his feet when the Baron picked him up bodily instead. He tensed, mostly out of surprise and having the motion of standing interrupted than anything else, and then consciously decided to go limp and rested his head against the Baron's shoulder. Lying down had been uncomfortable, but it was surprisingly relieving just to be kept upright without having to put any effort into staying that way. "It's important, though," he protested. 

"So we can come back to it when you're at your best," the Baron retorted, taking a few steps toward a bookshelf, which swung silently out of the way to... another study, sort of, except this one also contained a small laboratory, a camp bed, and other accoutrements for someone who didn't actually intend to leave it for a while. 

"I didn't spot that secret door at all," Tarvek said, surprised. 

The Baron rolled his eyes. "Knowing you, that's probably because Barry redesigned it."

Tarvek giggled, which hurt, and the Baron went over to what looked suspiciously like a laboratory workbench repurposed as an afterthought into a kitchen area. He worked one-handed as if he barely noticed he was still holding a child in the other arm, which Tarvek found a very odd feeling, as if he'd been forgotten without actually being dropped. Although he hadn't, obviously, because in a few minutes the Baron nudged his head up to press a heated cloth pad against his ear. Almost hot enough to hurt, but not quite, and it unexpectedly made the pain inside start to unknot. 

Tarvek blinked and settled again, carefully, the pad wedged between his ear and the Baron's shoulder for the moment since he wasn't being put down and found he didn't really feel like bringing it up. "Thank you." 

The Baron smiled faintly. "When you finally relax you do it thoroughly," he said. 

Tarvek analysed this and decided it sounded approving and probably meant he didn't need to move. 

Which was just as well. He was already starting to feel oddly sleepy -- or not so oddly really, between the warmth and not hurting and having only slept half the night anyway -- before the Baron gave him tea (lavender-chamomile-valerian, and they were almost certainly Spark cultivars because none of those should hit quite as hard as they did) and picked out a book to read. 

He remembered sitting with his father like this, once. Just the once. Not because he'd been ill -- it had been the first time Tarvek heard about Agatha. His father had been very excited, and kept bouncing him. Tarvek hadn't been suspicious enough then, as it turned out. It was very strange, now, but he decided just at the edge of sleep that he felt _safe_.

* * *


	3. Frozen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it's a Disney reference. :)

* * *

As Boris left his study, Klaus glanced over at the clock. He blinked, and went to look around the hallway outside his door. Tarvek hadn't been late for one of these meetings since he finished breaking through. Which, despite Agatha's even earlier example, was still a stunning thing to think about a child of _nine_. 

Well, Tarvek _was_ still a child. And a Spark. Something had probably come up. Klaus left the study locked and went searching for his wayward pupil. 

He found him in the second lab, alerted before he could see in -- much to his amusement -- by the sound of singing. The new opera had made an impression, evidently. And despite lacking Gil and Agatha's apparent compulsion to build ever stranger musical devices (well... ever more complicated: Klaus wasn't sure any of them were _actually_ stranger than a music box made from construction materials), Tarvek sang well and very clearly.

"Here I stand, in the light of day -- let the storm rage on---!" Klaus slid open the laboratory door, and Tarvek lost the held note in an alarmed splutter. " _Ack!_ I'm late, aren't I?"

"For the first time in over a year," Klaus said, suppressing a smile, "and I'm usually only there before you because it's my office." Interestingly, Tarvek was working not on the painstaking process of reassembling the worst-damaged Muses but on what appeared to be a modified furnace. Klaus abandoned the documents he'd brought with him and went around to investigate. A few minutes later, he caught a faint hum -- tuneful, not Heterodyne droning -- and glanced up. "So is the song just that catchy, or have you been feeling suppressed lately?"

Tarvek was leaning on an inactive heat-distribution arabesque and by this point looked rather amused himself at Klaus's distraction. Well, that had been entertaining people for decades now, not that half his friends had any room to talk. Tarvek paused, a thoughtful expression coming over his face, and then said, "Not _lately_."

* * *


End file.
